How to build an Android app to Windows app – Computerworld.nl

Background – Microsoft demonstrates how Android developers convert their app to a Windows app. The Java code remains intact because you are adding a block that allows Windows APIs are addressed instead of their Google equivalents.

Microsoft comes this year with two SDKs are known by the names Project Astoria (for porting Android apps) and Wood Island Project (for porting iOS apps). For the second needs some code to be converted into Visual Studio, but for Android developers is easier: they can simply remain in Java writing and make additions to the IDE they use for writing the Android app.

The Microsoft strategy is to make Windows a kind of universal receiver. This strategy is not without critics who argue that Windows as a mobile platform is now made completely irrelevant.
Image via Microsoft Build

The goal is the one hundred percent code remains intact. Developers will soon go to the Windows Dev Center to load their APK file there. Then, an analysis on the app performed to see which include services and components need to be converted and a design is made for a Live Tile

The Dev Center analyzes the app and look at what needs to be converted.
Image via Microsoft Build

A number of components must be replaced. For example, Google Cloud Messaging handles the notifications, but the process is different messages on a Windows device. So there comes Notifications for Windows in place, so that equivalent features are accessed as in the native Android app.

For example, the Android keyboard replace the keyboard of Windows Phone. “We windowsizen the Android app to your Windows experience,” said Microsoft CEO John Astoria Justice to Build developer conference. The Google Maps API is replaced by a link to Bing Maps, Windows Share Contracts is addressed instead of the share intent of Android, Xbox Live is used instead of Google Play Games APIs, and so on.

The Windowsizen Android components to Microsoft’s platform.
Image via Microsoft Build

Then there is no encroachment on the Java code in the IDE developers add only slightly
.